Author: Zheng Dui (Director General and Researcher of China Tibetan Studies Research Center)
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Tibet. On May 23, 1951, the Central People’s Government and the Tibet local government signed the “Agreement between the Central People’s Government and the Tibet Local Government on the Measures for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet”, declaring the peaceful liberation of Tibet. Since then, the Tibetan people have forever been freed from the invasion and shackles of imperialism, and embarked on the bright road of unity, progress and development in the big family of unity, equality, friendship and cooperation among all ethnic groups in the People’s Republic of China. The peaceful liberation of Tibet has laid a solid political foundation for the leapfrog development of Tibet’s economy and society. Over the past 70 years, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee and with the strong support of the people of the whole country, cadres and masses of all ethnic groups in Tibet have united and worked hard, solving many problems that have been wanted to be solved but have not been solved for a long time, and have accomplished many major things that have been wanted to be done but have not been done in the past. All undertakings have made all-round progress and historic achievements.
The social system has made a great leap. Old Tibet was under the feudal serfdom rule of the unity of politics and religion. This system brutally trampled on human dignity, seriously violated basic human rights, fundamentally hindered the social development of Tibet, and completely deviated from the trend of progress in China and the world. Taking peaceful liberation as the political basis, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, Tibet has undergone democratic reforms and completely abolished the feudal serfdom of unity of politics and religion, which has brought about fundamental changes in the social system in Tibet and achieved a historic leap. At the same time, people’s regimes at all levels have been gradually established, so that millions of serfs who had no personal rights in the past have the right to participate in the country’s political life in accordance with the law, the right to vote, the right to be elected and the right to equally participate in the management of Tibetan affairs. In 1965, the Tibet Autonomous Region was established, and then socialist transformation was carried out, Tibet entered a socialist society, achieving a great leap in the social system.
The economy has achieved leapfrog development. Under the feudal serf system, serfs and slaves, who account for 95% of the population, had no means of production or personal freedom, suffered heavy taxes, Ula servitude and usury exploitation, and struggled on the brink of death. Since the peaceful liberation, despite encountering many difficulties and challenges, Tibet’s economy and society have developed rapidly, and people’s living standards have been comprehensively improved, achieving a historic leap from poverty and backwardness to comprehensive well-off society, especially completely getting rid of the problem of absolute poverty that has been bound by thousands of years, and realizing a miracle in the history of human poverty reduction. When the region was peacefully liberated in 1951, Tibet’s GDP was only 129 million yuan. By the new era, the regional GDP exceeded 190 billion yuan in 2020, its economic strength was significantly improved, and its economic structure continued to be optimized. In 2020, even due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the growth rate of industrial added value in Tibet above scale still reached 9.6%, ranking nationwideFirst place; the tourism industry maintains a rapid growth trend, receiving more than 35.05 million domestic and foreign tourists. Before the peaceful liberation, more than 90% of people in Tibet had no housing for their own and lived a life without clothes or food. After the peaceful liberation, through democratic reform, the serfs finally had their own housing. By 2020, the per capita self-owned housing area of Tibet’s agriculture and animal husbandry will reach 4.46 square meters, and the per capita living area of urban residents will reach 33.4 square meters, and the happiness index will be greatly improved. In 2020, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in Tibet doubled compared with 2010. Under the leadership of the Party, Tibet has achieved great achievements in poverty alleviation. As of the end of 2019, all 628,000 registered poor people in the district have been lifted out of poverty, and all 74 poor counties and districts have been lifted out of poverty, and the problem of absolute poverty has been historically eliminated. At present, the per capita disposable income of the people who have been lifted out of poverty has exceeded 10,000 yuan, and the poverty alleviation results have been further consolidated. Facts show that peaceful liberation and democratic reform have made the Tibetan social system span a thousand years, and poverty alleviation has allowed the Tibetan people’s lifestyle to span a thousand years.
The social undertakings have made comprehensive progress. Peaceful liberation has provided strong political guarantees for promoting the comprehensive progress of Tibet society. After 70 years of development, Tibet has made unprecedentedly great progress in various social undertakings. There was no school in the modern sense in Tibet, with an illiteracy rate of up to 95%, and modern technology was even more blank. From 1951 to 2020, the country invested a total of 223.965 billion yuan in education funds, promoting Tibet to establish a modern education system covering preschool education, basic education, vocational education, higher education, continuing education, and special education, and implement 15 years of public education. The opening rate of primary school mathematics courses, the completion rate of middle school mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology course teaching plan, and the course offering rate stipulated in the national catalog of vocational and technical schools all reached 100%. The popularization of high school education was completed as scheduled. The public cultural service system is constantly being improved. As of 2020, Tibet has built five-level public cultural service systems at the built-up area, city (prefecture), county (district), township (town), village (community), libraries, mass art galleries, museums, comprehensive cultural activity centers, cultural activity rooms, etc. have become important places for the people to spontaneously carry out cultural activities. Before the peaceful liberation, there were only three official Tibetan medical institutions with minimal equipment and a small scale in Tibet. Currently, sound medical services, maternal and child health care, and Cinema disease have been established.Prevention and control, Tibetan medicine and other service systems. The people’s health level has improved significantly, the maternal mortality rate has dropped to 48/100,000, and the infant mortality rate has dropped to 7.6‰, both of which are the lowest values in history. The average life expectancy increased from 35.5 years in 1951 to 71.1 years in 2019. There was no formal highway in old Tibet. After the peaceful liberation, a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network covering various modes of transportation such as roads, railways, aviation, and pipelines was gradually established. Today, every established village has roads, and the mileage of Tibet highways has reached 118,800 kilometers. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Babaylan-Japan Railway were completed and opened to traffic, and the Sichuan-Tibet Railway was started. The branch airports such as Chamdo Bangda, Linzhi Milin, Shigatse Peace, and Ali Kunsha were built. From the snowy plateau, you can fly to the motherland and all over the world. Before the peaceful liberation, there was only one small electricity station in Tibet that was only for the enjoyment of a few upper nobles. It has now formed a comprehensive energy system that is mainly composed of hydropower and has multi-energy complementary energy such as solar energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy. In 2020, the Alibaba and Tibet-China Power Grid Networking Project was officially put into operation, and Tibet achieved coverage of the entire main power grid. The vast majority of serfs in old Tibet had no social status, nor had social security available. After the peaceful liberation, the social security system was established and continuously improved. At present, Tibet has a social security system covering all urban and rural residents, mainly consisting of five major insurances for pension, medical care, unemployment, work-related injuries and maternity, and the basic lives of the people have been effectively guaranteed.
Excellent performance in cultural protection. The country attaches great importance to the protection and development of the traditional Tibetan culture, invests huge manpower, financial resources, and material resources, and uses various means such as law, economy and administration to promote and develop Tibet’s excellent traditional culture on the basis of effective protection. The study and use of Tibetan language are protected by law. The resolutions and regulations passed by the People’s Congress since the founding of the Autonomous Region, and official documents and announcements issued by governments at all levels and government departments in Tibet use Chinese and Tibetan languages. Local governments and enterprises and institutions at all levelsIn the large-scale conference and the main activities of Cinema, the writing insists on using Chinese and Tibetan characters. During judicial litigation activities, Tibetan language is used to hear cases and legal documents according to the needs of Tibetan litigation participants, so as to protect the right of Tibetan citizens to use Tibetan language and text to litigate. Tibetan classics are protected and utilized. In 1984, the state allocated funds to build a new archives in the Tibet Autonomous Region, preserving and collecting a large number of precious archives in Komiks. Currently, the archives in the museum have more than 3 million volumes (volumes and pieces). Continue to support the collection, sorting, translation and publishing of important Tibetan classics, organize the survey and publication of the Tibetan version of the Tripitaka of China, rescue and organize the Biography of King Gesar, and publish the “Suichistorical Books of the Past Sages” series, the “Chinese Classic·Tibetan Volume”, and the “Snowy Domain Library” series. Since the peaceful liberation, Tibet has organized large-scale and systematic census, collection, sorting and research on cultural heritage. There are 4,277 cultural relics sites of various types that have been investigated and registered, and 1,985 cultural relics protection units at all levels, including 70 national cultural relics protection units. The country attaches importance to supporting the inheritance and development of Tibetan medicine. Currently, there are 44 public Tibetan medicine medical institutions in Tibet, and the coverage rate of Tibetan medicine services in township health centers and village health centers has reached 94.4% and 42.4% respectively. The central government has spent huge amounts of money on the protection of representative projects of national intangible cultural heritage in Tibet, rescue records of national representative inheritors, training of intangible cultural heritage inheritors, and supporting inheritors to carry out training activities, and building bases for intangible cultural heritage protection and utilization projects, etc., and intangible cultural heritage has been effectively inherited and developed.
Excellent achievements in ecological civilization construction. Since the peaceful liberation, the country has attached great importance to the construction of Tibet’s ecological civilization, continued to promote institutional innovation, build a solid support for science and technology and culture, increase investment in ecological construction, and promoted the building of a community of life between man and nature. At present, the overall ecological system of Tibet is stable, the environmental quality continues to improve, the green development pattern has been initially formed, and the people’s ecological environment rights and interests are constantly improving. The concept of “green water and green mountains are gold and silver mountains, and ice and snow are also gold and silver mountains” is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Tibet has become one of the best ecological environment in the world. The country and Tibet have increased investment in ecological civilization construction. As of 2020, Tibet has invested a total of 81.4 billion yuan in the ecological environment field. At present, Tibet’s ecological environment continues to be good. In 2020, the forest coverage rate reached 12.14%, the comprehensive vegetation coverage of natural grasslands increased to 46.71%, the wetland area reached 6.529 million hectares, and nature reserves account for 38.75% of Tibet’s land area.
Ethnic and religious work has achieved remarkable results. After the peaceful liberation, Tibetan ethnic and religious work was highly valued by the Party and the government. On May 23, 1951, on the day of the peaceful liberation of Tibet, Chairman Mao Zedong pointed out: “When considering any issue in Tibet, we must first think about the two issues of ethnic and religious issues. All work must be carried out with caution and steadily.” In 1965, the Tibet Autonomous Region was established, and the People’s Committee of the Autonomous Region was elected, and the regional ethnic autonomy system was fully implemented in Tibet. Since the establishment of the autonomous region, 152 local laws and normative documents have been issued, providing important legal guarantees for safeguarding the rights and interests of people of all ethnic groups. Since the peaceful liberation, economic and cultural exchanges among all ethnic groups have become closer, and the sense of community for the Chinese nation has become stronger. BabaylanFreedom of religious belief is fully guaranteed. In Tibet, all religions and sects are equal, and believers and non-believers are treated equally. There are more than 1,700 religious activity venues in Tibetan Buddhism, including about 46,000 monks, 4 mosques, more than 12,000 Muslims, 1 Catholic church, and more than 700 believers. The Tibetan Buddhist reincarnation tradition is respected. As of 2020, 92 newly reincarnated living Buddhas have been strictly customized in accordance with religious rituals and history, and have been approved and recognized. Various religious activities are carried out normally, and traditional religious activities such as temple scripture study, debate, precepts, initiation, and practice, as well as temple scripture study assessment and degree promotion activities are carried out normally. There are various religious and traditional activities such as the Sagadava Festival, the Lhasa Prayer Conference, the Year of the Horse to Gangdes Mountain, and the Year of the Sheep to Namcuo. The Cinema State Council has successively announced that the Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, Gandan Monastery, Tashilunpo Monastery, Drepung Monastery, and Samye Monastery are national key cultural relics protection units. The state has invested huge amounts of money and a large amount of valuable materials such as jewelry, gold, and silver, and has successively repaired important religious places such as the Potala Palace, Gandan Temple, Jokhang Temple, Baiju Temple, Tashilunpo Temple, and Samye Temple on a large scale. Continuously strengthen the collection, organization, publication and research of religious books. With the strong support of the state, the China Tibetan Studies Research Center has completed the largest, most comprehensive, most systematic and authoritative Tibetan version of the “Chinese Tripitaka”, which has been published in history, including “Ganzhuer”There are 4842 volumes and “Danjuel”, which are divided into 108 volumes of “Ganjuel” and 124 volumes of “Danjuel”. Religious and cultural protection has achieved remarkable results.
Time is like a song, and the plateau is magnificent. Looking at the development of the 70 years after the peaceful liberation, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the Tibetan people have been in full swing and striving for the song, writing a magnificent poem that transcends dreams in the history of contemporary Tibet’s development, adding tremendous strength to the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. History has proved that without the Communist Party and peaceful liberation, there would be no magnificent and vigorous socialist new Tibet, and there would be no happy and beautiful today for the Tibetan people. At present, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core attaches great importance to Tibet’s work. Standing at the historical height of achieving the “two centenary” goals and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it has formulated the Party’s strategy for governing Tibet in the new era, clarified the guiding ideology and goals and tasks of Tibet’s work under the new situation, and painted a beautiful vision for Tibet’s further prosperity and development. With the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core, Tibet’s development prospects will be even more brilliant.
Guangming Daily (Page 02, May 23, 2021)